Thirteen Hours

Chapter 33

Piet van der Lingen stood next to his big work table. 'The police are on their way,' she said, 'Captain Benny Ghree-zil.' The old man witnessed a transformation - her eyes brightened and the tension melted away. He smiled at her with his white false teeth and said: 'We will have to teach you proper Afrikaans pronunciation - it's Griessel.' 'Gggg ...' she tried it, sounding as though she was clearing phlegm from her throat.

'That's it,' he said. 'And roll the "r" as well. G-riessel.'

'Ghe-riessel.'

'Almost. Ggg-rrriessel.'

'Griessel.'

'Very good.' They laughed together. She said: 'How will I ever be able to thank you?'

'For what? For brightening an old man's day?'

'For saving my life,' she said.

'Well, when you put it that way ... I demand that you come and have lunch again, before you go home.'

'I would love to ...'

She saw him look up and away, at the window, with sudden concern shadowing his face. Her eyes followed his and she saw them, four men coming up the garden path. 'Oh, my God.' she said because she knew them. She got up from the chair. 'Don't open the door!'The fear was back in her voice. 'They want to kill me - they killed my friend last night!' She ran a few steps down the passage, a dead end. She heard someone wrenching at the front door and spun around in panic.

Then the leaded glass of the front door shattered. She sprinted back across the hall on the way to the kitchen, the back door. A hand came through the gap to unlock the front door from inside. 'Come on!' she shouted at van der Lingen. The old man stood frozen to the spot, as though he planned to stop them.

'No!' she screamed.

The door opened. She had to get away and ran through the kitchen, hearing a shot in the hall. She whimpered in fear, reached the back door and spotted the long carving knife in the drying rack. She grabbed it, tugged open the back door, and stepped outside in sudden dazzling sunlight. There were two more between her and the little gate in the corner, charging at her, black and white, with determined faces. Urgent footfalls behind her, she had only one choice. She ran at the one in front of her, the white man whose arms were spread wide to seize her. She whipped up the knife, stabbing at his chest with hatred and loathing and shrill terror. He tried to pull away, too late, the knife piercing his throat. His eyes filled with astonishment.

'Bitch!' the black man yelled and hit her with his fist. The blow landed above her eye and a cascade of light exploded in her head. She fell to the right, onto the grass, hearing their shouts. She struggled to get up, but they were on her, one, two, three of them, more. Another fist slammed into her face, arms pinned her down. She heard their short, brute grunts, saw an arm lifted high, something chunky and metallic swinging at her face, and then the darkness.

Griessel raced. He had taken the blue revolving light out of the boot and plugged it into the cigarette lighter. It was propped on the dashboard, but the fucking thing wouldn't work. So he just drove with the Opel's hazard lights flashing, but that didn't help much. He pressed long and hard on the hooter, saying to Vusi: 'I should have taken a car with a fucking siren.' They sped up Long Street through one red traffic light after another. Every time he had to slow down, stick his arm out of the window and wave frantically at the crossing traffic. Vusi did the same from his window.

'At least she should be safe,' said Vusi warily, ever the bloody diplomat. Griessel knew that what he really meant was: 'We needn't drive so madly - she said she was with a good man.'

'She should be,' Griessel said and waved wildly, hooting continuously, 'but I can't afford a fuck-up.' He put his foot down, and the Opel's tyres squealed.

Mbali Kaleni was driving serenely down Annandale in dense traffic near the turn into Upper Orange. She put on her indicator light to change lanes, waiting patiently, but no one would give her a gap. She shook her head, Cape Town drivers; in Durban this sort of thing would never happen. Eventually the stream in the right- hand lane thinned and she swung over, keeping the indicator on.

The traffic lights were red.

It looked like a hornet's nest, Fransman Dekker thought, the crowd abuzz, with microphones poised to sting you.

He stood on the stairs, and shouted loudly: 'Attention, everyone.'

They swarmed on him, there must have been twenty people, all talking, the stingers aimed at him in desperate hands. He could only hear snatches of the questions '... Ivan Nell shot him?''... the Geysers praying for?''... tried to murder Alexa Barnard?' 'Is Josh Geyser under arrest?''... Xandra dead?'

He held up his right hand, palm forward, dropped his head to avoid eye contact and just stood there. He knew they would quieten down eventually.

Kaleni saw them.

She spotted the panel van in front of the house, thinking at first it was those clowns from Forensics. She couldn't stand them, and wondered irritably what they were still doing here.

There was movement on the other side, the Belmont Avenue side, as she approached.

People were carrying something.

What was going on?

Closer still she saw there were four men in a hurry, each holding onto a piece of something. They moved crab-like along the pavement, but the picket fence hid their burden. She saw they were heading for the panel van parked in Upper Orange. Strange.

They were carrying a person, she saw as they came around the corner and out from behind the obscuring fence. She kept her eyes on them: it was the girl, lifeless, they were gripping her arms and legs. Mbali accelerated and her hand reached for her hip, pressed the leather loop off her service pistol, swung across the road and aimed for the front of the panel van. She was going too fast and could not stop in time, braked hard. In front of her one man jumped out of the van from the driver's side, holding a pistol fitted with a silencer. The small tyres of the Corsa squealed, the car skidded sideways, on a collision course for the kerb. She wrestled with the steering wheel and came to a standstill just a metre from the Peugeot, at right angles to it. Instinctively, she noted the registration number, CA 4 ...

She saw a pistol aimed at her, the windscreen starred and the bullet slammed against metal behind her. She wanted to dive down, but the safety belt held her.

'ujesu,' she said quietly and reached a hand to unclip it.

He shot her. She felt the dreadful blow to her body, but the safety belt was loose, she flattened herself, right hand reaching for her pistol. She lifted it and fired off three blind shots through the windscreen. The pain was an earthquake that rippled through her, slowly, unstoppable. She checked the wound. A hole below her left breast, blood trickling into a pool on the upholstery. Pity, she always kept the car spotless. She fired off more shots and sat up quickly. The pain ripped through her torso. Quickly she scanned for him through the windscreen. He wasn't there. Movement, here he was, just beside the door, pistol in both hands, long deadly silencer aimed at her eye. She saw a kind of African necklace around his neck, the beads spelling out a word. She jerked back her head, swung her pistol around in the certain knowledge of death. Fleeting sadness, so short, this life, as she saw his trigger finger tighten with purpose.

Griessel blasted a path through the traffic with his hooter and turned from Annandale into Upper Orange. A man in a fucking yellow Humvee gave him the finger, two cars had to brake sharply as he raced over the crossing. Vusi clutched the handle above the door, speechless.

Benny sped, on, accelerating out of the corner. They were nearly there. A madman in a big silver panel van came racing downhill in the middle of the road. Benny hooted again and swerved out of the way. He caught a glimpse of the driver's face, a young asshole with a fierce expression, then he looked up at the street ahead, which was suddenly empty. He changed down a gear, flattened the accelerator, engine protesting, another gear change, charged up the hill. This was his territory, his flat was only one block away in fucking Vriende Street; stupid bloody name, he still thought so. De Waal Park to the right, then Vusi said, 'It's just up there,' and they crested the rise. They both saw the Corsa at the same time, and neither spoke, because from the angle it had stopped, something was not right.

The single cab bakkie drove right in front of him, reversing out of a driveway from the left side of the street. Griessel slammed on the brakes and the Opel nose-dived, rubber screeched and smoked, and he skidded until the left wheels struck the kerb. 'Fuck,' he said smelling the burning rubber, jerked the Opel back, just missing the Toyota's front fender. He saw the man behind the wheel's big, wild, shocked eyes. Griessel looked at the Corsa, was the window smashed? He swung across the road and stopped behind the small white car, leapt out and heard the Toyota racing away towards the city. He glanced quickly after it, fucking asshole. He noted the street number on the wooden gate. Number 6. Bullet casing, he smelled cordite. Trouble here, bullet holes in the windscreen and the driver's window and there was someone behind the wheel, fuck, fuck.

'It's Mbali,' Vusi shouted as he pulled open the other door.

Griessel saw her head on her chest, blood on the headrest. He pulled open the door. 'Jissis,' Griessel said, trying to feel her neck for a pulse. His fingers slipped in the blood. He saw the wound below her ear, bits of jaw, white chips and a pulsing vein pumping out thick red fluid.

'Get the ambulance! She's alive!' He shouted louder than he meant to, his heart racing. He gently pulled her by the shoulder, until he had her turned over with her back to him, then he put his hands under her arms and felt more blood lower down. Carefully he pulled her out of the car and laid her on the pavement. Vusi came running around the car with his cell phone in his hand.

Two wounds, but the one in the side of her head was bleeding the most. He got up quickly and felt for his handkerchief, found it, bent beside Mbali Kaleni and pressed the hanky against the hole. He heard Vusi talking urgently over the phone. He swapped the hand holding the handkerchief and got hold of his phone, hearing a car skid around the corner in Belmont at great speed, he couldn't turn in time, just saw the tail, something. He looked at Kaleni, she wasn't going to make it, the ambulance would take too long.

'Help me,' he said to Vusi, 'I'm taking her myself.'

Vusi knelt beside him and said calmly, 'Benny they're on their way.'

'Jissis, Vusi, are you sure?' as he searched his phone for the Caledon Square number.

'They know it's a policewoman. They're coming.'

Griessel pressed the hanky harder. Mbali Kaleni moved, a jerk of the head. 'Mbali,' he said in despair.

She opened her eyes. Looked far away, then focused on him. 'The ambulance is coming, Mbali,' he wanted to encourage her: 'You're going to make it.'

She made a noise.

'Take it easy, take it easy, they'll be here soon.'

Vusi picked up Mbali's hand. He talked quietly to her in an African language. Griessel noted the small Xhosa man's calmness and thought Vusi might not be hardass, but he was strong.

Mbali was trying to say something. He felt her jaw moving under his hand, he saw the blood running out of her mouth. 'No, no, don't talk now; the ambulance will be here soon.'

He looked up at the house. 'Vusi, you will have to see what's going on inside there.' The black detective nodded, jumped up and ran. Griessel looked at Mbali. Her eyes were on him, pleading. He held the hanky tight against her neck, realising he still had his phone in the other hand. He phoned the station. They needed more people. Mbali Kaleni's eyes closed.